Any advice as what are the best wheel rims to use. Building bike for UK to South Africa trip. Are alloy rims stronger than chrome steel rims. What are other people using. Thanks:confused1:

heard good things about excel rims ,much toughter than the standard rims ,you could try DAVID LAMBETH RALLY & OVERLAND

Well dont know wether they still do but Excels were standard on YZ's and mine are still mint 10 years down the line.

Excel

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Yamaha TT600RE 2004
Yamaha YZ250 2 stroke 99

I asked the same question last year and all said that the Excel rims are stronger, but many said the standard rims are plenty strong enough with the advantage of being easier to fix in remote places, and requiring less expenditure. There were plenty of people saying they've had no problem with them on pretty much every terrain.

I opted to save some money at the outset and kept the originals, but despite regularly checking spoke tension and generally trying to take it easy on the bike over rough ground, by the time I hit the ferry port near Vlad both wheels were badly knocked out of shape. Unfortunately that meant I had to get them fixed at great expense and inconvenience at my next stop in Vancouver, where the useless and ridiculously expensive dealership messed up my trip by taking 4 weeks to replace my wheels.

Two lessons - If you can afford it up front, get the Excel rims, and if you need anything fixing get it fixed in Russia where it will take 5 minutes and be done for a pittance. Third lesson - checking spoke tension is vital but still won't save you from bust wheels. Fourth lesson - Siberian potholes can swallow you whole....

HTH!!

Al

Chrome wheels on 21st century trail bikes is some kinda Yamaha in joke surely, we had alloy wheels on trail bikes in 1980 for christs sake.

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Yamaha TT600RE 2004
Yamaha YZ250 2 stroke 99

Hi,

My experiences are different to what most people expect.

My girlfried and I went on a 35000 mile trip round Asia, Oz & NZ, including a few pretty rough roads. She was on a XT600E with the original steel rims and heavy duty spokes, I was on a tenere with its original fitment alloy wheels, also rebuilt with deavy duty spokes.

She had no wheel problems, but I developed a number of cracks from the spoke holes, which had not been modified, and then had spokes breaking. I had a new rim and spokes sent out to me and had the wheel rebuilt in Bankok, but the problem soon returned.

On this ocasion it was caused by the aftermarket rim having spoke holes at the wrong angle for the hub.

Tried again in Oz, the wheel builder knew all about having to adjust the holes in the rims and had an impressive list of customers, problem returned in less than a thousand miles.

It could be that still using the original shock played a part, but so was my girlfriend !

I have since had the back wheel rebuilt with a steel rim.

If I was you, I would check that your steel rims are not rusting bably inside or out, and if OK then have them rebuilt with the heaviest duty spokes that will fit without altering the holes in the rim. This saves quite a bit of cash on the cost of two top quality alloy rims and avoids the complication of the holes not being correcty aligned for the Yamaha rim.

Hope this helps

Mark

i was traveling with a guy who had the excel rims put on and he ended up having them rebuilt twice before i had even had to touch my wheels so he was wishing he saved his money.i think it could be just down to luck but after 24000 miles lots of off road ,mongolia,russia,baja,etc .i had a few cracks in my rear rim just took the spokes out got a colombian to weld the cracks for $5 and then respoke .a lot cheeper than the 400-450 pound for the excel wheel build

Thanks for all the advice. It looks like the Excel rims look the best bet at the moment. Still happy to hear other peoples views on this subject.

Stock rims are plenty strong enough. They bend because people dont check their spoke tension !! Ok they're heavy but so what on an heavily laden travel bike !!

Steel is less likely to break or crack than alloy.. Its much more flexible. You can bang a steel rim back into shape at the side of the road or in a tin pot workshop. That is much harder to do with alloy. It will probably crack if it hasn't already..

As for David Lambeth... He's a total rip off merchant. Knowledgeable, but no more than many here who won't charge you for advice or £1500 for £15 worth of vice bent welded scrap metal.

Lots more rip off stories available on request.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Could Marks post above yours give a reason for that ?

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Yamaha TT600RE 2004
Yamaha YZ250 2 stroke 99

Thanks for everybodies input, Time to change my mind. think I will go with standard rims but have worked on by a wizard wheel man.

I 2nd that...i've had one, save your $$$ for the trip!

When you've located and used the aforementioned wizard, please be sure to tell everyone who he/she is and their location.

Geoff

Unnecessay... Just check there are no holes or cracks. Check the spokes are all the same tension by running a screwdriver driver over the spokes while the wheel is moving. They should all have the same tone. If you hit one which sounds brighter it will be too tight, if it sounds dull, it will be too lose.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

And bear in mind that even with a brand new wheel, some will be tighter than others, so don't expect C sharp from each and every one! The main thing is that none of them go 'thunk', which indicates a very loose spoke or a broken one. You soon get to recognise the sound of a good spoke and a bad one. When I rebuilt my rear wheel recently, I spent ages plinking the spokes to try and get them to 'sound' more even, but it was a waste of time. The wheel was well within tolerances (<1mm runout both ways) and the spokes were still playing The Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy.

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2006 XT660R daily ride, 1994 XT600E about to be reborn, Blog: http://goingfastgettingnowhere.blogspot.com/